Part 5 of 5 Part Series.
Though many of Rand's followers call themselves Objectivists, I don't really like the term and prefer to consider myself a skeptical individualist who seeks to live according to enlightened self-interest. I'm not after all, a genuine follower of Rand as I view her anti-emotional disposable personal relationships as both disloyal and destructive. I also believe that health and a healthy lifestyle are interwoven and inseparable from genuine personal happiness. Still, this post is dedicated to the actualization to which Rand led me.
I have not read Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead or The Virtue of Selfishness in a long time and I will not explain them here. If you want to read those books, you'll have to buy them. Instead, I want to relay how the philosophy of promoting enlightened self-interest above all other considerations impacted my life, my spirit, and my happiness.
As a young adult, I was unhappy, restless and willing to try anything that might grant reprieve from gloom. (See some prior entries in this series for more detail). I lived in a dingy college dorm and my friends were druggees with no eye to the future. I was similarly affected. A high school friend, who was before and again became my closest friend, bought me a copy of Atlas Shrugged. Since I wasn't really interested in school (I got decent grades on absolutely minimum effort and was never motivated), I took a month or two to read and truly understand Atlas Shrugged. Once I did, I consolidated my understanding with later novels and developed what I think is a slightly more appealing philosophy.
I want to explain a few key aspects of enlightened self-interest. Notice that I did not use Rand's term, rational selfishness, for though the two are very similar in result, they elicit much different reactions from a lay person. In colloquial English, selfishness has adopted a pejorative meaning that I do not wish to invoke when labeling myself. Therefor, I will use the term Enlightened Self-Interest. Here are a few characteristics:
1. I live for my own happiness. Happiness requires that I earnestly pursue honesty and trustworthiness.
Believe me, I have not always been honest or trustworthy. There was a time when I stole trinkets for the thrill and took pride in my ability to hoist deception upon unwitting teachers and peers. There was a time when I fantasized about sexual violence and enjoyed shocking people with how little the boundaries of culture constrained me. There was a time when every single person who knew me, knew a different me. Two acquaintances discussing me must've been remarkably confused, sometimes shocked. I was continuously caught in contradictions, always needing to invent a more elaborate story to explain away dubious inconsistencies. It got to the point where I avoided talking to most of my acquaintances for fear that I would not remember which version of me they knew. I grew increasingly isolated since even my closer friends did not trust me. Needless to say, this did not make me happier.
Two influences shocked me out of this downward spiral. One was Rand, whose clarity of thought convinced me that I was betraying myself by continuously making choices that led to my ultimate unhappiness. My daily decisions were the source of my misery. She explained how thinking critically, understanding the value of property, and working hard, were signs of respecting yourself. This realization motivated and clarified my life, I began to think about every decision I made with a goal of promoting my own happiness. The needless lies, petty property crimes, and shock antics were quickly shelved. The self-deception took longer.
The second influence was love. This is one area where I differ greatly from Rand, who saw everything through a go-it-alone type lens. I believe that enlightened self-interest means loving deeply and without reservation. This requires soul-baring honesty, which was quite a chore for me. If you (like most people) are not critical of your own faults, then you are not honest with yourself. If you are not honest with yourself then it is wholly impossible to be honest with others. I failed many times at honesty in that first experiment, but I learned how to make the effort, something that has set me up for success in my most recent relationship. Trusting someone without reservation, a relationship I now hold with three people, enables you to more objectively accept their critiques of your flaws. Objectively analyzing your own flaws is perhaps life's most difficult task, and one of the most important stepping stones to happiness. Valued loved ones can prod you with reasonable criticism, while being there to comfort and aide you as you make mistakes or endure difficult times.
2. I focus on the long term. I plan to be alive for 100 years, given a little luck. Since my goal is to be as happy as possible for as many years as possible, I must consider that my decisions will impact my whole life. Health and family were both somewhat under explored by Rand but are natural results of her philosophy.
Health is necessary for longevity of course, but more than any other single factor, health is necessary for happiness. A healthy brain is an active brain, a creative brain, a happy brain. A healthy lifestyle promotes a healthy brain. It really is that simple. Pursuing health has a number of consequences, but perhaps the most devastating to my old self was the abandonment of drugs, at least as a common occurrence. These days, I rarely drink and never to excess. I rarely smoke marijuana (and only with a vaporizer since it minimizes carcinogens). I never do stimulants beyond mild ones associated with increasing attentiveness for a short and controlled period. Hallucinogens are out. These habits combined with years of strength and endurance exercise and a vegetarian diet have put me in good physical condition, ready to keep my mind strong for the long haul.
Focusing on the long-term also means planning for the arc of my life. I have an adventurer's spirit, but a family soul. As I age, I know that I am quickly approaching the time where I must prepare to have children if I am to achieve one of life's greatest joys. I have adjusted my adventures, business plans, and personal relationships in preparation for this inevitability. I will not stop adventuring, but I can no longer take enormous financial risks, nor switch lives between China and America at will.
In the end, Rand provided a clarifying moment at a critical period of my life. Her unabashed defense of serving one's own goals first and foremost provided a schematic for me to improve myself. I took to heart my responsibility for my choices in my pursuit of actualization, and applied her philosophy to my strongest desires: health and family. I still fail regularly on both personal and professional levels, and I still suffer periods of uncertainty, but I'm confident that I have the tools to continue being the happy person I am.
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